One of the most frustrating things a
woman can experience is having a late period and a negative pregnancy test! It does not matter if you are trying-to-conceive or if
you’re trying-not-to-conceive, a late period and recurring negative pregnancy
test results can lead to a great deal of stress, worry, confusion, and
conjecture on what might be happening…. Am I pregnant? If so, then why the
negative test result? If I’m not pregnant, then where is my period?!?
Many factors can cause a missed
period because they disrupt your hormonal balance. These include increased
stress, anxiety, travel, jet-lag, weight loss, exercise and sleeplessness.
1. Stress
Stress can affect many things in our lives, including our periods. Sometimes we’re so stressed out that our body decreases the amount of a hormone (GnRH), which causes us to not ovulate or menstruate. Working with your doctor or midwife can help you figure out what you need to do to relax and get back on schedule.
2. Illness
A sudden, short illness or even a longer illness can cause your periods to be delayed. This is usually temporary.
3. Change in Schedules
Changing schedules can really throw off your body clock. This is particularly true if you go from days to nights at work or vice versa.
4. Change in Medications
Perhaps you’re trying a new medication and a delayed or absent period is the cause. Be sure to talk to your doctor or midwife about this side effect. It is very common with some methods of birth control.
5. Being Overweight
Carrying around too much weight can hormonally shift your cycles and even stop them. Most women will see a return to normal cycles and fertility with the loss of some weight.
6. Being Underweight
If you do not have enough body fat you will not have regular periods, sometimes you can eve cause your periods to stop all together. This is called amenorrhea. Typically a weight gain will help you have your periods return. This is a frequent cause of a missed period in women who work out to an extreme or are professional athletes.
7. Miscalculation
The menstrual cycle varies from woman to woman. While we say that the average menstrual cycle is 28 days long, that is not true for everyone. Sometimes our period is believed to be late when in all actuality we have simply miscalculated. If you have irregular menstrual cycles, but know when you ovulate, look for your period about two weeks after you ovulate. That may help you keep an easier track of your periods.
8. Peri-Menopause
Peri-menopause is the period of time where you are transitioning from reproductive age to a non-reproductive age. Your periods may be lighter, heavier, more frequent or less frequent – but mostly just not normal. If you do not wish to get pregnant, be sure to continue to use birth control because you are likely to still be fertile at least some of the time.
9. Menopause
Menopause is when you have reached the point in your life where you will no longer ovulate or menstruate. Menopause can be a natural life event or may happen surgically through hysterectomy or through chemical such as chemotherapies.
10. Pregnancy
Finally! Yes, your missed period might be because you’re pregnant! A simple pregnancy test can usually help you determine if you have missed your period because you are pregnant. The urine pregnancy tests and blood pregnancy tests look for the hormone hCG.
One possibility is that you are in
fact pregnant , but the urine test result comes back negative. This is called a
“false negative pregnancy test”? First, read all the instructions again and
make sure you are doing the test properly. If you are, then a false negative
result can occur if the test kit you are using is of low sensitivity. This
means that the test is capable of detecting pregnancy only when the level of
hCG reaches a certain threshold, and the test is simply not sensitive enough to
yield the positive result.The best option is to do a blood test for checking
your HCG level.This is very reliable !
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